These are the colleges I’m thinking about applying to:
REACH:
Columbia
Cornell
UCLA
USC
TARGET:
Northeastern
UCSB
UCSD
Cal Poly
maybe BU or UIUC?
SAFETIES:
SDSU
USD
Stats:
White female from average public school in CA
SAT: 1540, 770/770
ACT: 35, 36w/36r/36sci/32m
Planning on taking SAT II for math II and bio or maybe physics
GPA: 4.0 UW 4.45ish W
Took lots of APs and honors (basically all that were offered)
AP tests: AP Euro (4), APUSH (5), AP Lang (5), AP Calc AB (5), taking 5 more APs senior year
ECs:
Volleyball 4 years (JV capt. 10th grade and probably varsity captain senior year)
Outrigger paddling 2 years
Worked over the summer at Jamba Juice and a robotics camp for kids
Girl Scouts until junior year
CSF (California Scholarship Federation) all 4 years
Awards: most likely NMF, none other that I’m aware of
I’m looking for more safety schools and more schools out of state, preferably east coast. I’m thinking about majoring in civil engineering or engineering in general. Any advice is appreciated!
Your academic profile and standardized test scores are quite strong, so I think the schools you call safeties definitely are safeties. That being said, I suppose your targets and reaches are more the question at hand.
You seem like a great test-taker, so you should be able to whip up excellent scores on your subject tests (assuming you’re studying of course). However, your extracurriculars won’t be as impressive as other applicants, especially those who will apply to the reaches. For example, you may be an excellent volleyball player at your school and have committed many years to Girl Scouts, but there will always be other applicants with state and even national titles. It’s awesome that you have work experience, but there will be other applicants who were accepted into rigorous research positions or maybe even started their own company.
In order to make up for this, your essays will have to be very strong, so absolutely do not procrastinate on them. Have you had to overcome certain challenges? Have you witnessed or done things in life that no one else really can remotely relate to? Spend lots of time asking yourself these questions to bring out a totally unique, impressive personal story to your application packet. With that, I’m fairly confident you’ll get into, or at least most of, the target schools. I have friends who were accepted into those schools with not the best grades. Of course, their extracurriculars, standardized test scores and/ or essays made up for that. In your case, your impeccable grades, standardized test scores and hopefully powerful essays should secure your admission and make up for any disadvantage when competing with the extracurriculars of other candidates.
In terms of the reaches, I know students with similar profiles as you who got into UCLA and USC. Ivies are iffy for anyone. Your numbers, however, are very impressive, so I think with really great essays, you can pull in Cornell and perhaps even Columbia. All of these schools are awesome for engineering – perhaps also consider Carnegie Mellon? I’m not well-informed about safeties on the east coast.
If you have any questions or want any tips for essays, feel free to DM me! I was accepted into a couple schools you listed (Columbia and UCLA to be specific). I didn’t apply to the other schools on your list, but do know a lot of friends who did – many of whom were accepted.
